PPS Summaries for SNFs, IRFs Available From APTA

APTA has posted summaries of recent notices from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that update the payment rate used under the prospective payment system (PPS) for skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and for inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) for fiscal year 2013. The notices are effective October 1, 2012. Neither notice contains any substantive policy changes, and so there is no comment period for them.

For the SNF PPS, the overall economic impact of the payment update is an estimated $670 million in increased payments to SNFs during fiscal year 2013. The market basket increase factor is 2.5%, which is reduced by a 0.7% multi-factor productivity adjustment. The result is a payment percentage update of 1.8% for the year. The SNF summary is available to APTA members on the Medicare Payment and Policies for Skilled Nursing Facilities webpage under the "APTA Summaries" heading.

For the IRF PPS, the update provides a 1.9% net increase, resulting in an overall economic impact of $140 million during fiscal year 2013. The notice also includes the continued implementation of quality measures for IRF settings. The IRF summary is available to APTA members on the Medicare Payment and Policies for Hospitals webpage under the "Inpatient Rehabilitation/APTA Summaries" heading.